


Actions and Consequences

by RudyRed34



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Dwemer - Freeform, Forsworn, Gen, One Shot, cidhna mine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 18:50:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13013961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RudyRed34/pseuds/RudyRed34
Summary: Alfhild Fannarsdotter is a Nord of the Reach, and as such she hates the Forsworn with every fiber in her being. When she gets the chance to avenge all the kinsmen who have died at Forsworn hands, she takes it. However, she doesn't fully think through her plan, and things very quickly go awry, leaving her to wonder whether her actions were worth the consequences.





	Actions and Consequences

“Boss, you all right?”

Alfhild’s throat tightened with alarm at the gravelly voice coming from up the hall. She tried to get her breathing back under control as she stared down at the bloody, mangled body before her. When she first met Madanach - the King in Rags himself - she was surprised by his aged, stooped appearance. This little old man was the leader of the Forsworn, the terrorists who had plagued her family and her people since childhood? That such an unassuming old man had spearheaded a violent insurgency lasting twenty years - and from inside prison, no less - was almost inconceivable. With his bushy, stark-white mustache, he looked like he could have been her grandfather, or maybe a great-uncle. It almost made her hate him more.

Still, he had proven difficult to kill. Not from a moral perspective - Alfhild had fantasized about avenging her sister for a decade now - but from a practical one. He had been deceptively strong, and he'd put up a hell of a fight. 

Alfhild clamped one hand to her abdomen to staunch the bleeding from where he’d caught her with his shiv. The coarsely-woven prisoner’s tunic she wore was already sticky. She pushed the pain from her mind as best she could. She had to move quickly - Madanach’s orc strongman, Borkul, would realize something was amiss any second now and come to investigate.

Wincing, Alfhild crouched next to Madanach’s body and searched his prisoner’s rags for the key to the gate she’d passed on the way into his chambers. She found it in short order hanging from a leather cord around his neck. Snatching it up, Alfhild took one last look at the bogeyman from her childhood. He looked like any other dead body now. She spat on his blank, bloody face. “That’s for Sigrun, you dog-fucker,” she hissed, and she limped as quickly as she could manage to the gate.

“Boss!” came the gravelly voice again, closer this time. Alfhild cast a quick glance up the tunnel, tucking a lock of unwashed red hair behind her ear. Her fingers, numb from adrenaline and slick with blood, fumbled with the key. “What’s going on?” Borkul barked, and Alfhild heard him break into a jog.

The key finally sank home with a soft  _ click _ , and Alfhild rushed through, slamming the iron gate closed behind her. She half-limped, half-ran down the roughly hewn passage, the key gripped tightly in her fist. Behind her, she heard Borkul let out a strangled yell of anguish as he discovered his leader’s corpse. He immediately deduced what had happened - he was no fool - and attempted to chase down Alfhild. However, she’d locked the gate behind her, and he rattled the bars futilely. “Get back here, you Nord bitch!” he snarled as she disappeared into the shadows. “I’ll rip you apart! I should’ve snapped your puny legs when I had the chance!” Alfhild ignored him.

There were no torches in the tunnel, and it quickly became too dark for Alfhild to see. Keeping one hand pressed to her wounded side, she used the other to feel for the wall beside her. She wanted to move quickly, for it was possible Borkul would give away the Forsworn prisoners’ secret passage so the guards would hunt her down, but the wound in her side screamed with every step, and her crude foot wrappings did little to protect her feet from the stone. She was forced to carefully pick her way forward through the pitch blackness.

The air grew hot and stuffy. Sweat beaded on Alfhild’s hairline and trickled down her neck to mingle with the blood. She was starting to feel lightheaded, and her side burned. The tunnel angled down, down, down - how far into the mountain did it go? Did it even have an exit? That would just be her luck, to have escaped down a dead end. At least she managed to take out Madanach first and avenge her sister. Her father would have been proud, too. Perhaps she’d get to see them in Sovngarde soon enough. She kept walking.

There was a door.

Alfhild ran her hand over the embossed metal, found the handle, and tested it. The hinges resisted at first, but then the door opened with a groan and the soft scraping of iron on stone. Stumbling through the doorway, Alfhild blinked and squinted from the soft, pale green light emanating from a crystal mounted in a brass cage - though it wasn’t much brighter than a large candle, it was positively blinding compared to the utter blackness of the tunnel. Once her eyes adjusted, she took stock of her surroundings.

Though it had been damaged by the movements of the earth and the persistent burrowing of tree roots, it was obviously a Dwemer ruin; precisely carved stones with gilded geometric designs jutted out here and there from the earth. The air was still warm, but not stifling - there was actually a slight breeze winding its way through the hall. Distantly, Alfhild could hear a rhythmic growling, punctuated by the occasional hiss of steam. She was somewhere in the old Dwemer city atop which Markarth had been built. Which meant that there was a way out. She grinned. It seemed Cidhna Mine wasn’t so unescapable after all. Sovngarde could wait for a little while longer.

Now that she knew where she was, Alfhild eased herself down onto the smooth flagstones and finally took time to investigate her wounds. Her hands and arms were covered in deep cuts from the struggle to get Madanach’s shiv away from him, and her right foot throbbed from accidentally kicking over a chair during the melee; one of her toenails was cracked and bleeding. Her left eye ached from where it caught one of his elbows - no doubt it was already blooming into an impressive shiner.

Gingerly, Alfhild pulled her hand away from her abdomen and examined where Madanach had stabbed her in the gut. The wound was deep, though she couldn't tell just how deep, and bled freely. There was a red-black stain running down the length of her tunic and pants. A wave of nausea slammed into Alfhild, and she doubled over as she vomited up the thin stew she’d eaten that morning. “Fuck,” she grunted, her throat burning, and she spat in a vain attempt to banish the sour taste of stomach acid from her mouth. It had been an exceptional bit of bad luck - she'd already slit Madanach’s throat when he stabbed her. Who would have guessed he'd still have the wherewithal to draw a shiv on her? At least there wasn’t any blood in the vomit. That would have been a truly dire sign.

When the nausea subsided to a manageable level, Alfhild staggered to her feet. She had to get out of there and find help, and soon. As she wandered down the hallway, leaving bloody footprints in her wake, she considered what sort of cover story she’d tell. The obvious one was that a Forsworn had attacked her. It was actually true, if not the entire truth. Maybe the news of yet another Forsworn in the city would get people so riled up they’d fail to notice her prisoner’s attire.

The passageway wended back and forth, making abrupt and unexpected turns due to old collapses that had shut off random parts of the ruin. Every few meters was another one of the glowing crystals, which provided the only illumination. The steady, mechanical hum continued the entire time, never growing louder or softer. Alfhild had heard stories about wondrous Dwemer automatons that still functioned after all these centuries; was that the generator that powered them, perhaps? Or maybe it was the source of the steady, refreshing breeze that kept the air from going stale this far underground. 

Eventually the passage opened up into a large room - or perhaps a cave; it was difficult to tell, in its decayed state, where Dwemer excavation ended and natural caverns began. Regardless, Alfhild spotted the green glow of another crystal lamp at the far end of the chamber, further up. A broad set of mostly-intact stone stairs led up to from where the light emanated. Up was good. Up meant out.

Alfhild limped up the steps but had to stop and catch her breath when she reached the top, exhausted even after such a short flight. The nausea assailed her again, this time accompanied by dizziness, and she retched and spat into the thick layer of dust that covered the floor. Everything hurt. Her heartbeat thudded loudly in her ears. The fiery pain in her side had now turned to ice. Wiping the sweat from her upper lip, Alfhild gritted her teeth and forced herself to continue towards the light, her almost-bare feet dragging on the stone.

This part of the ruin was in better condition than where she’d first entered, with smooth walls and high stone ceilings that all bore meticulous designs. There were more crystal lamps, too, and the light reflected off the polished stone, gold leaf, and brass. The ever-present thrumming was louder here, and seemed to be coming from below; some large metal pipes that ran up the length of the walls were the source of the hissing steam. Alfhild followed the wide hallway as it turned left, then right - and then abruptly ended in a tangle of rubble and roots.

After a moment of quiet despair, Alfhild noticed a relatively unobstructed doorway to one side that she’d be able to squeeze through; it had been partially hidden by thick cobwebs. The room immediately on the other side was dark, but the faint light of distant lamps reassured her that it wasn’t a dead end. She began to slowly, painfully push her way through, but then she froze. These weren’t old cobwebs; they were still fresh and sticky. 

Alfhild strained her ears to listen over the sound of the Dwemer machines. Was that a soft rustling she heard in the dark passage beyond? Instinctively her hand went to her belt for a weapon, but of course she had none; in her haste to escape, she hadn’t even thought to retrieve her shiv from where it’d fallen during the scuffle. Not that she was in any condition to fight off a frostbite spider, anyway. Perhaps she’d be able to sneak by.

Holding her breath, Alfhild inched her way through the webbing, which she was still able to break through with a small amount of effort. Every few steps, she paused and searched the shadows for any signs of a hidden predator. Did spiders have a sense of smell? She prayed not. No doubt the blood all over her was as enticing as the scent of a hot, fresh roast. She listened again - this time she was sure she head movement ahead, in the hallway on the other side of the room, and it was getting closer.

Whether by sound, or smell, or some other sense that Alfhild couldn’t comprehend, the frostbite spider seemed aware of her presence. The hairs on the back of her neck rose as it rounded the corner. It was about the size of a sighthound, sickly green with thick hairs all over its body, and its many legs moved with an uncanny, herky-jerky speed. However, it didn’t go straight toward her - instead, it began to cautiously probe the corners of the room, its front legs tap-tapping the floor and walls like a blind man’s cane. Apparently it hadn’t sussed out her precise location yet.

Glancing down, Alfhild noticed a fist-sized rock near her foot. She reached down with agonizing slowness, suppressing the urge to cry out from the pain in her side, never taking her eyes off the giant spider. As she picked up the stone, the spider froze and turned in her direction; Alfhild’s breath caught in her throat. Its too-many black eyes glittered in the faint light of the distant lamps. Could it see her? Was it even looking at her? She couldn’t tell. Its mandibles worked compulsively, as though it were mulling over some deep thoughts, but otherwise it didn’t move.

Alfhild waited several excruciating seconds for the spider to make its next move. It remained still, apparently waiting for the same from her. Finally, she flicked the rock towards the doorway from where she came.

The frostbite spider darted towards the noisy clattering as the rock bounced across the floor; simultaneously, Alfhild lunged for the far corridor, towards the lamplight. A surge of adrenaline flooded her veins, and while she wasn't able to run, exactly, she managed a desperate, unbalanced jog. The hall opened into another large cave, which she crossed to yet another narrow passageway; she didn't stop until she was well clear of the webbing, when she finally collapsed to her knees next to a crystal lamp. Her breath coming in ragged sobs, she looked over her shoulder for signs of a pursuer. There was none; whether she was too far from its hunting grounds, or it had decided she was too big a prey to safely take down, or it simply didn't like the light from the crystal, the spider had given up the chase.

Exhaustion permeated the marrow of Alfhild’s bones, and she lay down on the stone floor. She rolled onto her back and clamped her hand even tighter to her side; the stab wound, which had mostly stopped bleeding, was oozing once more from the sudden exertion. Her head swam as she stared at the cracked ceiling. Stone above, stone below; Alfhild realized she was already in a tomb.

She'd spoken to Madanach, briefly, before she'd decided to exact her revenge upon him. He'd told her she'd never see the sun again. He didn't mean it as a threat, but as a plain statement of fact. Now Alfhild feared it was prophecy. Tears blurred her vision; she closed her eyes and tried not to sob. 

In honesty, Alfhild hadn't thought much beyond killing Madanach. Even then, despite having been imprisoned in the first place because of her too-enthusiastic investigation of Forsworn attacks, she hadn’t decided to kill Madanach until she spotted the concealed passage out of his cell and realized there was an escape route. The possibility of dying was always there, of course, but it was one thing to die in righteous combat and quite another to bleed out, alone, on the floor of a forgotten city after an ill-conceived escape attempt. _Papa_ _did always say I needed to be better at planning for the future,_ Alfhild thought with bitter humor. Then again, even though Sigrun had been the more prudent and responsible daughter, that hadn't saved her from being killed by the Forsworn.

Alfhild’s thoughts turned once again to Sovngarde. Her father, Fannar, was certainly there, having fallen in battle against a bandit gang several years ago. And Sigrun - surely being martyred by the Forsworn qualified her for entrance to the golden halls. Was avenging Sigrun’s death sufficient for Alfhild’s admission? She tried to convince herself it was, but she didn’t feel like a valorous hero at the moment. She felt like an idiot who was finally paying for her shortsightedness.

It took Alfhild several moments to realize there was a change in the background noise of the Dwemer machinery. There several clanks, numerous thunks, and… was that the sound of battle? Briefly, Alfhild wondered if she had already died, and she was hearing the sounds of Sovngarde’s heavenly warriors - but a fresh stab of pain banished that thought. With great effort, she opened her eyes and propped herself up on one elbow. The clamor of swords on shields was unmistakable, and it was coming from not far ahead. Inhaling sharply through her teeth, Alfhild struggled to her feet and pushed forward, towards the racket. The combatants might kill her right away, or they’d actually help her; either was preferable to a slow and lonely death.

There was another flight of stone stairs, and even though this one was shorter than the last, Alfhild found it more difficult to ascend; she had to support herself against the wall, and even then she stopped to catch her breath halfway up. As she approached the source of the noise, she realized she could hear only one voice over the clashing steel: a woman, and she sounded familiar. Alfhild shook her head. Impossible - she must be getting delirious.

The top of the stairs opened into a massive machine room of some kind, with a raised platform leading from the stair landing through the middle of the room, and huge brass pipes and vents on every side and below. Atop the platform, just a few meters away from Alfhild, a Nord woman bearing sword and shield was fending off two… machines of some kind, man-sized automatons that each rolled around on a brass wheel instead of having legs. As bizarre as these Dwemer automatons were, though, Alfhild was much more surprised by the sight of the woman. “Lydia!” she croaked. 

Lydia’s attention was focused on her mechanical foes, understandably, so she didn’t notice Alfhild right away. Alfhild hung back by the top of the stairs, knowing that she’d only be a hindrance to her companion in her current state. Eventually, Lydia shifted her position and spotted Alfhild. Her face bloomed with surprise and, moreso, triumph. “There’s a staircase leading down to the exit - over there on your left!” she called, raising her shield to deflect an automaton’s sword blow. “Go, now! I’ll hold these things off.”

_ More stairs? Why must there be more stairs? _ Alfhild wondered as she spotted the staircase in question. She hobbled over, still using the wall to support herself, and began to painfully descend step by step. She’d made it only about halfway when she heard the clattering of boots behind her; Lydia was suddenly beside her and, ignoring Alfhild’s protestations of pain, she half-carried and half-dragged her the rest of the way down. One of the automatons followed them down, its single large wheel bouncing loudly down the steps, but as soon as they reached the tall doorway on the far side, it stopped, slowly retreated back up the stairs, and resumed its eternal guard over the machine room.

“What are you doing here?” Alfhild asked as Lydia helped her walk the length of a high-vaulted room.

“Looking for you,” Lydia replied. Sweat from her recent battle plastered her walnut-brown hair to her forehead beneath her steel helmet. “I was told this ruin connected to Cidhna Mine. Thought I might be able to break in and get you out. Should’ve figured you were already working on it. That’s why you’re the Thane and I’m just the housecarl.” Her lips curled in a familiar sardonic smile.

Alfhild’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Who told you?”

“I’ll explain it to you in a bit.” 

Having deemed the area safe, Lydia eased Alfhild down to the ground and reached into her belt pouch for a small red bottle. She uncorked it and handed it to Alfhild, who downed its contents without question. A tingling warmth suffused her limbs as the alchemical mixture boosted her body’s healing abilities. She was still in pain, to be sure, but it was more manageable, and she wasn’t quite so exhausted. When she stood again, after a minute or so of rest, she didn’t need to lean as much on Lydia for support.

“You look like shit, my Thane,” Lydia remarked as they started walking once again.

“You should see the other guy.”

Alfhild felt Lydia tense up beside her. “So, then you did…?”

“Kill Madanach? Yeah. Despite his best efforts.”

Lydia was quiet for some time. Unlike Alfhild, she was from the central region of Skyrim, so she’d never been personally affected by the Forsworn insurgency; while she agreed that they were terrorists, it had always been more of an academic problem for her. “I know of quite a few people who will be happy to hear that,” she finally said in a tone of voice that Alfhild didn’t know how to interpret.

They eventually reached a once-grand entrance hall with a massive set of double doors at one end. With a bit of effort, Lydia pushed one of the doors open a few feet - Alfhild was still too weak to help. Sunlight streamed in, and Alfhild shielded her eyes with one hand. Lydia gently took her other hand and led her out. The entrance was actually in a shady area, tucked away near the sheer face of the mountainside in one of Markarth’s numerous twisting dead ends. In the distance, Alfhild heard the roar of the cataract that powered the city’s blacksmith and smelters. She followed Lydia to one side, where, tucked amongst several juniper bushes, was a small cache of food, clothes, and equipment that Lydia had apparently stashed before entering the ruins.

With Lydia's help, Alfhild carefully peeled off her filthy prisoner's tunic and leggings. Using a jug of water and some clean linen rags, they washed off the blood that had dried to her skin. Lydia examined the stab wound in Alfhild’s abdomen, which, now that she had a clear look at it, wasn't as big as she'd feared - perhaps only an inch long, an angry red line against her pale skin. “Well, it  _ smells  _ okay,” Lydia said, a hint of uncertainty in her voice, “but we definitely need to get you to a healer as soon as possible.”

“Just not that priestess of Dibella,” Alfhild said, shivering in the chilly mountain air. “I think she's still mad at me.”

“Hmph.” Lydia smeared a sticky ointment over the wound and pressed a square of cloth to it using more pressure than was strictly necessary. Alfhild winced. The cuts on her hands and arms had mostly scabbed over, so only some of them needed to be bandaged. When that was done, Alfhild dressed in a simple shift and blue woolen overdress, again with Lydia's help. “You look almost normal,” Lydia said as she watched Alfhild attempt to fasten a dagger belt about her waist. “Nothing to be done about that black eye, though.”

Quickly realizing what a bad idea it was too cinch anything around her abdomen, Alfhild tossed the belt to the ground. “Do you think the guards will be looking for me?” 

That strange expression passed over Lydia's face once again. “Wait here. You need to rest up, anyway. I want to check something.”

“I thought I was the one who gave orders,” Alfhild grumbled, but she stiffly sat down between the juniper bushes and retrieved a strip of dried salmon from the cache as Lydia strode down the cobbled path, her head swiveling as she checked for any witnesses. Soon she'd disappeared around a corner, and Alfhild was left alone to enjoy her hard-earned freedom. 

She alternated between mouthfuls of salmon and sips from the jug of water, forcing herself to eat and drink slowly lest she overtax her stomach. It was, undoubtedly, the most delicious meal Alfhild had ever eaten. Nearby, a nuthatch trilled a simple, jaunty tune, and further off was the faint echo of a smith’s hammer striking metal. It reminded her of her childhood in the mining town of Karthwasten; she'd steal sword blanks from the town smith to practice with, using tree stumps as dummies. Sigrun always warned her she'd get in trouble - and she always did. But she kept doing it anyways. Alfhild smiled at the memory, then yawned.

Wrapping tightly around her the gray wool cloak Lydia had provided, Alfhild lay down amongst the juniper bushes, their sweet fragrance filling her nose. She quickly fell into a deep slumber, punctuated by dreams of playing with Sigrun just like when they were children. But then Sigrun was nowhere to be found, and Alfhild found herself fighting with an amorphous foe in the darkness, an enemy that was sometimes her father, sometimes Madanach, and sometimes a gigantic spider. Just as the spider sunk its fangs into her flesh, Alfhild woke with a start. A bald man in rich clothing was standing over her; it was Thonar Silver-Blood, the man who owned the prison from which she’d just escaped.

“Now now, no need for that,” he said as she reached for her nearby dagger - though he took a step back, just in case. Alfhild noticed that Lydia was standing nearby, a large bundle of equipment slung over her shoulder and a vaguely embarrassed look on her face. Out of confusion more than anything else, Alfhild dropped her dagger. Once he was convinced she wouldn’t attack, Thonar said, “I understand you took care of Madanach for me; you have my deepest thanks.”

“You’re the one who threw me in prison in the first place!” Alfhild growled, though in her weakened state she felt more like an impotent whelp than a threatening wolf.

Thonar raised one eyebrow and wagged a finger at her as though she were a child. “Ah-ah-ah -  _ I _ didn’t throw you in prison. Some corrupt guards did. Just a few bad apples who have already been dealt with accordingly. In any case,” he continued, ignoring Alfhild’s look of open contempt, “that doesn’t change the fact that you’ve done Markarth a great service. Madanach had become too big of a problem for even Cidhna Mine to contain, but executing him would have made him a martyr for the Forsworn. On the other hand, there’s no glory to be had from dying in a prison brawl.” He stood aside to let Lydia approach with her burden; it turned out to be Alfhild’s armor and equipment, which had been confiscated when she was arrested.

“I didn’t do it for you, or for Markarth,” Alfhild said.

“No, of course not. You did it for your father, or your cousin, or your sister, or whichever family member was killed by the Forsworn. Don’t think your story is different from any other Nord of the Reach.” Thonar’s words took on a hard edge as he said this, and his eyes shined with barely-contained tears. Alfhild remembered his wife and was silent. Eventually, he cleared his throat and removed a large silver signet ring from his pinkie and tossed it to Alfhild, who caught it. “My brother and I are working to secure your pardon right now. That ring  _ should _ grant you safe passage if any guards accost you.”

“‘Should?’”

Thonar shrugged. “I am no longer certain of anything, these days.” He turned to leave, then paused. “You may want to leave the city for a while, just to be safe,” he added. 

Alfhild watched Thonar leave, then turned to Lydia. “You were working with the man who imprisoned me?”

Lydia flushed and refused to meet Alfhild’s gaze. “I was trying to get you out and I thought maybe I could convince him. He offered me a way to break in, on the condition I help you kill Madanach. What was I supposed to do? Turn him down?”

“No, I suppose not,” Alfhild sighed. “Now I feel stupid for taking on Madanach by myself, though.”

“You wouldn’t have waited for me even if you’d known I was coming,” Lydia retorted. “Now let’s get you to a healer.” She hefted Alfhild’s equipment over her shoulder and held out a hand to assist Alfhild to her feet.

With a grunt of pain, Alfhild rose and shook the dead juniper scales from her cloak. “Not the priestess of Di - ”

“She’s the only one there is. I checked.”

“Damn.”

“I’m sure she’ll be  _ thrilled _ to see you like this.”

Alfhild snorted, then winced at the pain it elicited in her side. The two companions slowly descended the path, emerging from the shadow of the granite cliffside into the crystalline daylight.


End file.
